“Painful failures create real agricultural technology”… Seo Jong-hyo’s steadfast drive expands his territory as head of the Young Farmers Association

Many people talk about the future of agriculture. But it is rare to find someone who gets their hands dirty, experiences bone-deep failure in the field,, and then discusses advanced technology again on that foundation. That person is Seo Jong-hyo, chairman of the Young Farmers Association, who started as a college student entrepreneur in Suseong-gu, Daegu, and has grown into one of the leading figures in Korea’s young agricultural community today.

He built his theoretical foundation by double majoring in biotechnology and agricultural economics at Kyungpook National University, 2011 and started in 40 pyeong of student garden space, and now runs an experience·education farm, smart farm contract operations, and even overseas agricultural development in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. We met Chairman Seo Jong-hyo, who is leading field-centered agricultural innovation and policy proposals in Daegu, to hear about the future of youth agriculture he envisions and the path forward for the Young Farmers Association(Cheongyeon).

Not government-led but a ‘voluntary solidarity’…uniting the voices of young farmers
Chairman Seo currently leads the ‘National Young Farmers Association’, which includes 130 full members and 500 associate members nationwide. 2018 Organized in , Cheongyeon is a purely private solidarity organization created voluntarily by young farmers.

He emphasized, “The greatest strength of our organization is its voluntary nature. We have four branches across the country, including Seoul·Gyeonggi·Gangwon·Jeju, Chungcheong, Gyeongsang, and Jeolla,, and we maintain a strong network through branch meetings as well as three nationwide gatherings each year, including the annual general meeting, the summer MT(this year in Sancheong on August 21–22), 12 and the year-end gathering in December.”.

One of the activities Chairman Seo has devoted the most effort to since taking office is the ‘Cheongjeongsu(policy tools for young farmers)’ initiative. Through online channels, they regularly hold non-face-to-face dialogues to gather the practical difficulties and policy suggestions of young farmers. He serves as a bridge, delivering without embellishment the vivid voices raised through Cheongjeongsu—such as the difficulty young farmers face in securing farmland—to government policy tables including the Youth Farmer Forum under the Presidential Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Policy(APFRP).

Chairman Seo said, “The entry barriers and difficulties young farmers face often remain confined to the field. My role—and the reason Cheongyeon exists—is to propose real ‘policy’ that reflects the actual voices of young people through policy study groups”..

The limits of the flashy but hollow ‘smart farm’…“The key is high-quality production capability”
Chairman Seo also bluntly pointed out the bare reality of smart agriculture. He has been contract-operating smart farms in Dalseo-gu, Daegu(including urban smart parks) for 2 years and 6 months, but says the gap he feels on the ground is considerable.

He said, “The reality is that smart farms have not yet reached the level of quality technology seen in open-field cultivation. Technical capabilities vary enormously by equipment company, but in the end, the key is whether you can continuously produce the ‘high-quality’ vegetables consumers want”..

In fact, he built a 700-pyeong greenhouse facility and benchmarked Taiwanese-style smart farms to try producing European-style salad greens, but ran into enormous labor costs and technical limitations, temporarily halted production, and converted it into a seedling nursery. He also personally developed a tower-type smart cultivation system, only to experience failure due to uneven growth in the lower section.

Chairman Seo emphasized, “Experience and educational content belong to the knowledge service sector, so they can operate even if farming performance does not come out at 100% , but the production sector is honest and unforgiving”, adding, “I kept longing for success in the production field, taking on challenge after challenge and repeating failure. What I came to feel deeply in that process was, in the end, the importance of ‘core technology’”..

Expanding global territory and presenting a data-based ‘AI variety matching’ solution
The fields Chairman Seo has turned his attention to are 'tissue culture' and 'seedling cultivation' . Drawing on his biotechnology major from his university days, he is immersing himself in specialized books from the Korea Seed & Variety Service and striving to secure foundational technology. The conviction he felt in the past when he visited Google and Apple headquarters in Silicon Valley as part of a Daegu youth experience group—“what changes the world is ultimately technology, and without technology, you lose the initiative to others”—is the driving force behind him.

His gaze now extends beyond Korea to overseas. He chose Kyrgyzstan as the first place to realize the dream he has held since college of ‘overcoming hunger’..

Chairman Seo Jong-hyo said, “The agricultural flow in Kyrgyzstan is very similar to the period in Korea in the 1990s when seedling nurseries were being introduced. Now is the optimal timing for seedling technology to be introduced”, adding, “We are pushing a project to build seedling nurseries for local small farmers to raise farm income and improve productivity. Young farmers, including field-specific experts within Cheongyeon, will join together to pass on the technology”..
 

Busy preparing for the Young Farmers Association’s August MT
Chairman Seo has put down roots in the local community through operating an educational farm and other activities. From the ‘Suseong Reverse Life School Urban Farmer Department’ for seniors to infrastructure for young farmers, and rice planting·threshing experience programs visited by about 500 children each year, the farm has already established itself as one of Daegu’s representative experience·education farms. He also expressed his ambition to completely revamp the YouTube channel ‘Nongsa Jikbang’ into a content channel that delivers agricultural technology and information to the public in an easy and entertaining way.

8 Busy preparing for the Young Farmers Association MT to be held in Sancheong, South Gyeongsang Province, on August 21 and 22, Chairman Seo Jong-hyo said, “The theme of this MT is ‘Rest, and Replenishment’”, adding, “We will prepare it so that members, who live busy day after day, can briefly set down their work, share their hearts with colleagues who have the same concerns and the same dreams, heal, and recharge their energy”..